Paul Sadler Swimland celebrates 50 years of teaching lifesaving skills in Australia
Paul Sadler Swimland is celebrating 50 years of teaching vital lifesaving water safety skills in Australia with plans to open more sites in both Australia and South-East Asia in the coming months and years.
Paul Sadler opened his first Swimland site in Brighton in 1972. With the prevalence of backyard pools increasing and little being done in the space of learn to swim, Sadler - both a passionate teacher and swimmer - saw an opportunity to help families reduce the risk of drowning by teaching vital lifesaving water safety skills to their children.
Now, 50 years later, the foundation of that idea is still as strong as it was in 1972. Paul Sadler Swimland now operates swim schools across Australia and Vietnam.
The program at Paul Sadler Swimland is unique in its approach to teaching survival skills at every level. In lower levels, spending a minimum of 10 minutes per lesson in deep water, teaching treading water, deep water recovery (safety circle) and mobility on front and back until children have achieved two minutes unaided treading water. In higher levels building treading water skills to 30 minutes clothed as well as survival strokes and transitioning out of the pool and into the open water. These techniques and programs have been developed and refined over the last 50 years where the team at Paul Sadler Swimland are passionate about changing lives for the better.
With classes starting from four months old through to adults, and operating a simple to follow 13 step program, children and adults alike will not only learn to swim, but learn to survive.
Sadler himself remains a passionate advocate for teaching children lifesaving water skills and realised early on that parent’s biggest desire when enrolling in swimming lessons was ‘to prevent their children from dying’. He developed his program to give children the skills they need to be safer near the water and to learn in a stress free, fun environment.
With the impacts of COVID closures over the past two years – regular, formal swimming lessons were limited and these impacts have been seen in the increased number of drowning deaths in Australia. According to the Royal Life Saving National Drowning Report 2021, drowning deaths increased by 20% on the previous year and tragically, deaths among children aged 0-4 years increased by 9% compared to the 10-year average.
Sadler notes “Learning to swim has never been more important and who better to learn from than the Survival Specialists at Paul Sadler Swimland, who have been teaching this for 50 years.”
Images courtesy of Paul Sadler Swimland.
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